User blog:Daburu/Sword Eyes manga - thoughts upon completion
DDL link here. Spoilers and walls of text ahead, be warned. As some of you may know, the Sword Eyes manga is now fully scanlated in English! And for those that don't know... well, now you do. I wouldn't suggest you go look for it now though, since I'm putting up new DDLs and a batch torrent next week. Anyway, this was quite the project! There's a lot that I can say I learned from a technical perspective, and going back through the pages the differences between the earliest and latest pages, the difference is dazzling (and not just because I figured out how to make the pages actually white). And the entire last volume was released in the superhuman span of one month, though I know I can't guarantee that pace in the coming months. Aside from that whole inner perspective, there's a lot to say about this series. Overall, it's kind of hard to judge its quality. The anime's 50 episodes and has a lot of complexities, and the manga gets all of 12 chapters to show it. It figures that the manga has to cut out a whole ton. As a standalone series that definitely wouldn't cut it, but can it be blamed for only having so much time to complete the story? The most unfortunate result of the time cuts is the lack of character development. The best-done character was Hagakure, followed by Rirove. Hagakure started off as a dropout who couldn't protect anything, but after joining the Lights he was able to make himself a little useful. Then when confronting Rirove, he overcame his habits; his convictions about failure, learned from his own mistakes, were strong enough to call forth the Sword Brave that he had wanted so much. This time he was able to protect Suou, and Suou in turn decides to become stronger. Hagakure's development was done very well, I only wish this could have meant something at the end. Rirove's character strength mostly lies in his obsession with Suou and perfection, and it's really clear in his dialogue. His decision to accept imperfection was kinda thrown in at the end there, but it was a decent resolution. And now for the characters that weren't so wonderful. Kizakura and Sora weren't too bad. Sora's decision to stay or to go wasn't much of a conflict, nor was Kizakura's indifference to being a Sword Eyes, but at least they had decisions to make. Haqua didn't change at all, but he was pretty true to his pre-glasses reveal (and I can't fault an end where Haqua harasses Yaiba until he employes him, that was great). Yaiba's motivation was really one-dimensional though. In the beginning there's some mention of him wanting to become God, but that was kinda nixed when he just became an evil king wanting to bring darkness to the world, or something like that I find it hard to believe that the last battle would really affect Yaiba. Really, how did he lose that match? There's no way he wouldn't have a flash timing ready. Now we come to our protagonist. As much as I love Yaiba, anime Tsurugi is even greater as a character. He progresses from a completely oblivious kid to having a full understanding on the reasoning and consequences of each person's actions. As a Light he assumes the world is split into good and evil, but when he becomes Dark he learns that it's much more complex than that. In my own opinion, it's exactly why the series is called Sword Eyes: Every character has their own perspective of the world, and Tsurugi sees the world from both down below and up on high. This aspect is brilliant, and I really love Tsurugi for this. So how does manga Tsurugi compare? Manga Tsurugi is a completely different story. He's split the world into good and evil. Even when he becomes Dark, there's just a moment's assurance that "dark is not evil" and then there's no consequence at all of him becoming Dark. There's no reason or payoff for him to become a Sword Eyes of Darkness. He doesn't even get Overray or his final battle form to show for it. After defeating Yaiba, Tsurugi is automatically made king, but then abandons it to keep his grounded perspective. It's incredibly silly for him to leave the world in the hands of a guy who did so very well with it the last time. All that's keeping Yaiba (and Garudos) from taking control again is his word and his mom, which really isn't much. In the end, Tsurugi's "bright world" is just one without good or evil. Needless to say, this is incredibly unsatisfying. On Garudos: wow, he did absolutely nothing. He really seems to have no sway over Yaiba at all. The one time he went out of the castle, he sat in a comfy chair while watching Zardo get royally Crushed by Sora. After that, he only went out right before the final battle and then during the coronation ceremony. And I've gotta say, I really pity him. He finally has a chump (no offense Tsurugi) on the throne with all the Sword Eyes and Sword Braves gathered. He's about to see himself attain God status and destroy the world... only for Tsurugi to be all "lol nah smell ya later" and destroy his chances for the next lifetime. It's almost like the author's trying to make up for the half-hearted finale. The plot itself is again very simplified. It starts off with Tsurugi finding out his identity and gathering the Lights. The arc closes with him getting Ark and fighting to save Bringer from Brau, leading into Tsurugi becoming a Sword Eyes of Darkness. Right after that there's Hagakure's fulfillment, and it's right into the final battle from there. The consistent aim of Tsurugi is to defeat Yaiba and save his mom; there's never any change in that. I suppose that's as much as can be asked when there's only 12 chapters, but still. I'm not sure if I can fairly rate it based on this, but there's also enjoyment to consider. Having gone through the manga so many times, I've become incredibly familiar with every chapter and can hardly remember my initial impressions (I do know the finale ticked me off though). There's definitely some worthwhile parts, but the Sword Eyes manga tries to be funny and serious and ends up being mediocre at both. The battles are kind of bland, with each person using the same few tiny spirits until they send out a key one. But the key spirits do make up for it, they're well done in both effectiveness and illustration. Seriously, just look at any page with Raraphael and try not to swoon. I'm glad I got the chance to work on this manga. I'll miss spending my lunch breaks working on it (especially tomorrow, since I'll have to BS the ethics essay that I was supposed to be working on today. That says a lot about my own ethics right there ヽ（´ー｀）┌ but as Haqua would say, "Business will fail if you mope around!")... In any case, there's more out there to translate! Thanks for your support, and look forward to the next project! Category:Blog posts